From August 2017 – January 2020, Keith R.A. DeCandido took a weekly look at every live-action movie based on a superhero comic that had been made to date in the weekly Superhero Movie Rewatch. In this latest revisit we’ve covered some older movies—It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman!, Mandrake, and the two Timecop movies—and we now look at the newer releases, starting with the latest Spider-flick.
The third MCU Spider-Man movie with Tom Holland almost didn’t happen. Even as Far From Home was providing a lovely coda to Phase 3 of the MCU in 2019, Sony and Disney were far apart in negotiations for how to proceed with their bizarre character timeshare with Spidey.
Emboldened at least in part by the success of Venom, with plans for the sequel to Venom and for Morbius, Sony probably thought they could continue to do Spidey on their own, as they had from 2002-2014. However, there was a significant fan backlash, and Holland his own self pleaded with the heads of Sony and Disney to get a deal done to keep Peter Parker in the MCU.
As a result, No Way Home was able to happen. As with the previous two, part of the deal was that at least one MCU hero had to appear alongside Spidey. Following Iron Man in Homecoming and Nick Fury in Far From Home, it’s Doctor Strange in No Way Home.
The plot of the film has the DNA of two major Spider-Man comics stories: First was 2007’s “One More Day” by J. Michael Straczynski & Joe Quesada, in which Peter agrees to a deal with Mephisto, the lord of the underworld, to retroactively end his marriage to Mary Jane Watson (one of the stupidest story decisions ever made in the nearly six decades of the character’s existence) and also make everyone who knew that Peter and Spidey were one and the same forget that they knew (Peter had revealed his identity to the public during the Civil War storyline). The other was “Spider-Verse,” a multi-comic story from 2014 primarily written by Dan Slott, but with several others involved, which saw Spider-people from multiple realities teaming up to fight a foe that is trying to kill every Spider-person. (This storyline was also the inspiration for the animated film Into the Spider-Verse and its forthcoming sequels.) In this film, Peter goes to Strange to ask him to make everyone forget Spider-Man and Peter Parker are one and the same, after he was doxxed by Mysterio and J. Jonah Jameson in the mid-credits scene in Far From Home, and the spell goes wrong, causing people from other universes who know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man to come through, including two other Spider-Men.
This movie was originally intended to be released after Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, with Strange having had lots of experience with the multiverse before the shenanigans in this movie. However, pandemic delays messed with the release dates, and this movie wound up being scheduled first, with both movies getting rewrites to accommodate it. (We’ll cover Strange’s movie in a few weeks.)
Alternate time tracks were introduced into the MCU in Avengers: Endgame, with the time heists causing a few divergent timelines, one of which was followed up on in the Loki TV series, and it was also mentioned in Far From Home as part of Mysterio’s bullshit backstory. This movie goes full multiverse, enabling Holland’s Spider-Man to interact with characters from the three Sam Raimi movies and the two Marc Webb ones.
Back from Far From Home are Holland as Spider-Man, Zendaya as MJ, Marisa Tomei as May Parker, Jacob Batalon as Ned Leeds, Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan, Tony Revolori as Flash Thompson, Angourie Rice as Betty Brant, Martin Starr as Mr. Harrington, J.B. Smoove as Mr. Dell, and the great J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson. Back from Homecoming are Hannibal Buress as Coach Wilson and Gary Weeks as Department of Damage Control Agent Foster. Back from Endgame is Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange. Back from Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is Benedict Wong as Wong.
Back from the third season of the Daredevil TV series is Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock. Back from Venom: Let There be Carnage is Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock and the voice of Venom in the mid-credits scene (following up on the mid-credits scene from that last movie). Back from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 are Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man and Jamie Foxx as Electro. Back from The Amazing Spider-Man is Rhys Ifans as the Lizard. Back from Spider-Man 3 are Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man and Thomas Haden Church as the Sandman. Back from Spider-Man 2 is Alfred Molina as Otto Octavius. Back from the 2002 Spider-Man is Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn. (Ifans and Church weren’t available for live-action filming, but were able to lend their voices to their roles. Both characters appeared in, respectively, lizard and sandy form for the bulk of the film, with archival footage from their prior appearances green-screened in at the end when they revert to their human forms.) Maguire’s and Garfield’s appearances were some of the best-kept secrets of 2020 and 2021, with the actors going so far as to deny that they were in it right up until the day of release.
Appearing in this film for the first time are Paula Newsome as the MIT chancellor, Arian Moayed as another DODC agent, Cristo Fernández as a bartender, and the delightful Mary Rivera as Ned’s grandmother.
Cumberbatch and Wong will next appear in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Cox is reported to be appearing in the upcoming Echo TV series spinning off the Hawkeye series. Moyaed will next appear in the Ms. Marvel TV series. While a fourth Spidey movie is likely, given how well this film did, one has not been announced yet.
“Scooby-Doo this shit!”
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Written by Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers
Directed by Jon Watts
Produced by Kevin Feige, Amy Pascal
Original release date: December 17, 2021
We pick up right where we left off, with J. Jonah Jameson outing Peter Parker as Spider-Man with footage obtained from Mysterio’s cohorts. Peter heads home to find out that May and Happy have broken up—something Happy is still struggling with—only to have their apartment surrounded by helicopters and the Department of Damage Control arresting them, along with Ned and MJ.
With some legal help from Matt Murdock, no one is arrested, but Peter still has the court of public opinion to deal with. (A brick is thrown through the window, which the blind Murdock unerringly catches. By way of explanation, he says, “I’m a very good lawyer.”) They move to Happy’s condo on Long Island, which is more secure than their apartment in Forest Hills.
Peter, MJ, and Ned go back to school in the fall. Things are awkward, to say the least—public opinion is split in general and at the school between those who think Mysterio was a hero whom Spidey killed and those who believe Spidey is a hero—and the trio try to focus on their college applications.
Months pass, and the three of them don’t get into any of their colleges of choice—not their secondary choices, and worst of all, not into their first choice of MIT. The rejection letters from MIT specify that their public profile is such that the institute can’t bring themselves to accept them.
Heartbroken that Ned and MJ’s dreams are being derailed by their association with him, Peter heads to Greenwich Village and visits Doctor Strange. (The Sanctum Sanctorum is covered in snow because a portal to Siberia opened and let a blizzard through.) Peter asks Strange to use time travel to change it he isn’t outed, but Strange doesn’t have the Time Stone anymore. However, Strange suggests a spell that will make everyone forget that he’s Peter Parker. Wong advises against it—he’s the Sorcerer Supreme now because Strange was blipped for five years—but ultimately just tells Strange to leave him out of it.
Strange starts the spell, but as he’s casting it, Peter keeps remembering people he wants to still know he’s Spidey—MJ, Ned, May, Happy—and his constant interference with the spell while Strange is casting it causes it to go blooey. Strange manages to contain it, but there may have been some damage. Then Strange realizes that Peter never even tried calling MIT to ask for clemency for Ned and MJ, but went straight to messing with reality, and kicks him out of the sanctum.
Peter reluctantly calls Flash, who got into MIT and is at a mixer for new students, and asks if he can help Peter talk to the chancellor. Flash says she’s on her way to the airport already. Armed with a description of her car, Peter follows the route she’d take from the mixer to the airport, and finds her car stuck in traffic on the approach to the Major Deegan Expressway exit on the Cross Bronx Expressway. (Your humble rewatcher drives on that stretch fairly regularly, and this scene now always pops into my head when I drive on it. Also, that mixer had to be in either Riverdale in the Bronx or in Inwood or Washington Heights in upper Manhattan, because those are the only locales in New York City where you would be taking that road to get to the airport. But I digress…)
While Peter is pleading with the chancellor, the highway is attacked by a man with four metal tentacles. Peter switches to the Spidey suit, and the man recognizes Spider-Man and continues to attack, asking about a machine. Peter has no idea what he’s talking about, and when the man rips off his mask, he doesn’t recognize Peter. This is Otto Octavius from another universe, and Spidey is able to make his suit’s nanobots interact with Octavius’ arms to control them. Peter manages to save several lives, including that of the chancellor, and she says that she’ll talk to the admissions people about letting all three of them in. (Peter only asked for Ned and MJ to be reconsidered, but the chancellor is impressed by Peter’s heroism.)
Someone else attacks the highway, whom Octavius recognizes as someone named Osborn, but then Strange teleports Peter and Octavius back to the sanctum, with Octavius imprisoned in a mystic cell, as is a lizard-man—this is Doctor Curt Connors from another universe. Apparently people from other universes who know that Peter and Spider-Man are the same person are being drawn into this universe because of the botched spell. Peter has to track them down while Strange himself works out a way to send them all back. He tells Strange that he needs MJ and Ned’s help, and Strange reluctantly agrees. Ned is nerding out over being in the sanctum, and then they get to work.
Ned finds a report of a strange flying man near a power station, and he thinks it might be the other guy on the Cross Bronx. Octavius points out that the person he saw was Norman Osborn—who’s dead.
When Spidey arrives, it’s actually a man who is accessing the electricity from the power station—and there’s also a man made out of sand. These are Max Dillon (from Connors’ universe) and Flint Marko (from Octavius’). Using a doodad of Strange’s, Peter sends both Dillon and Marko to the sanctum (and also a big tree).
Osborn, still struggling with his Dissociative Identity Disorder, is disoriented when he reverts to the Osborn personality from the Green Goblin one, and smashes his Goblin mask. Unable to find his house, which someone else lives in, or his company, which doesn’t exist, he finds May at a F.E.A.S.T. location, which he went to because Spider-Man was being used to advertise the place. May summons Peter, who brings him to Strange’s sanctum.
Over the course of their conversations, Peter, Ned, and MJ realize that four of these five guys were snatched from their universes right before they died fighting Spider-Man. Peter is determined to try to cure them of what ails them and causes them to fight Spidey to the death. Strange appreciates the thought, but they need to be returned to their homes before the fabric of reality is destroyed or worse, Wong finds out.
Peter snatches the magic box Strange has created to send them back. A chase ensues, which Strange sends to the Mirror Dimension. Strange almost gets the box back, but Peter realizes that the craziness of the Mirror Dimension is all spirals and circles and fractals and he is able to figure it out with the power of math. He is able to bind Strange, snatch both his sling ring and the box, and bring them back to reality.
He brings Octavius, Osborn, Dillon, Marko, and Connors to Happy’s condo. Using one of Stark’s fabricators, he’s able to create several useful concoctions, including a repair to the chip Octavius uses to control his arms and a way to neutralize Dillon’s control of electricity. However, before he can give Osborn a way to get his DID under control, the Goblin personality reasserts itself. Dillon also likes the feel of the ARC reactor energy from the fabricator. A vicious battle ensues, leaving the condo trashed. All five bad guys escape, but Osborn sticks around long enough to blow up the lobby of the building with May and Peter in it. May dies shortly thereafter.
Jonah Jameson of TheDailyBugle.net has been hammering at Parker and Spider-Man on his webcast for months, and he finds out that Peter is harboring super-powered beings at a condo on Long Island, so not only does he report on this debacle, but Damage Control shows up to take charge of the crime scene at his call.
At Ned’s house, MJ and Ned don’t know what to do. When Ned—who is wearing Strange’s sling ring—says he wishes Peter were there, there’s a spark. He tries to make that wish again while trying to make the ring work. Sure enough it brings in a person in a Spider-Man suit—but it’s not the Peter Parker they know, but rather the one from Connors and Dillon’s universe. He has to prove that he’s really Spider-Man by walking on the ceiling—Ned’s grandmother then asks him to get rid of a cobweb that’s been bothering her—and so then Ned tries again, this time getting the Peter Parker from Octavius and Osborn’s universe, who’s in his civilian clothes.
Both Peters ask if there’s a place where this universe’s Peter would go to get away from it all, and MJ recalls that they both used the roof of their school for that. (Okay, this is getting awkward. From now on, they’re Maguire!Peter, Garfield!Peter, and Holland!Peter.)
Sure enough, there’s Holland!Peter on the roof, absolutely miserable about May’s death. The three Peters bond over their various tragic experiences—Maguire!Peter losing Uncle Ben, Garfield!Peter losing Gwen Stacy. They agree to band together and try to save all five of the bad guys, and also get them together so they can use Strange’s box to get them back to their own universes. The three of them work well together, along with Ned and MJ. There are some fun moments, like when the other two realize that Maguire!Peter can shoot webbing from his wrists and doesn’t need web-shooters. Garfield!Peter, meanwhile, already has a cure for the Lizard, so he puts that together…
Holland!Peter calls TheDailyBugle.net and says he’ll be at the Statue of Liberty (which is being renovated to include a replica of Captain America’s shield).
Sure enough, Dillon, Connors, and Marko all show up and fisticuffs ensue. The fight goes badly, as the three Peters aren’t used to working as a team. Holland!Peter’s attempt to say he knows how to fight with a team from his time with the Avengers doesn’t really land, as there are no Avengers in the other two universes. (“Is that a band? Are you in a band?”)
However, they manage to get the teamwork thing going and are able to cure Connors, Marko, and Dillon. Osborn then shows up (“Can the Spider-Man come out to play?”), but so does Octavius, and he’s on the Spider-Men’s side, as he’s grateful for the cure.
Strange returns from the Mirror Dimension, bitching about having dangled over the Grand Canyon for twelve hours. He tries to use the box to send everyone back, but Osborn managed to get a goblin grenade into it, and it goes boom. Now reality is coming unraveled. Strange is trying to hold it all together, but there’s only so long he can keep the ruptures in space-time at bay.
The shield is knocked off the statue. Holland!Peter and Osborn confront each other, and the former wails on the latter, furious over May’s death. Maguire!Peter tries to stop him, and gets stabbed for his trouble. Garfield!Peter throws the syringe with the DID cure to Holland!Peter, who injects it into Osborn, who is devastated by what he’s done.
Holland!Peter goes to Strange, and asks if this will get fixed if he casts the original spell. Strange says it will, but he has to make everyone forget that Peter Parker ever existed. Holland!Peter agrees.
He says his goodbyes to Maguire!Peter and Garfield!Peter and then to Ned and MJ, who are devastated that he’s taking this step. But he promises that he’ll find them and remind them of who he is.
Strange sadly casts the spell. Everyone returns to their proper universe.
We see Jameson on TheDailyBugle.net, railing into Spider-Man, but now complaining that he hides his identity behind a mask. When Peter visits May’s grave, Happy is also there, and asks who he is and how he knew May. Peter just says that he met her through Spider-Man.
He goes to the coffee shop where MJ works and orders a donut, but doesn’t tell her or Ned—who are discussing their plans for MIT—who he really is, despite his promise. Then he goes back to his crappy apartment, where he’s sewn together a cloth costume, is studying for the GED, and will continue to fight crime.
In a bar, Eddie Brock is being told all about this universe, such as the rich guy in the tin suit and the big green rage monster and the purple alien who collects stones, before he’s sent back to his own universe, though he does leave a tiny drop of symbiote behind…
“Dude!” “Dude!” “Duuuude!” “Duuuuuuude!” “DUDE!”
Okay, let’s start with the elephant in the room. There is one thing in this movie I utterly despise and hate and am furious with, and have a hard time forgiving the movie for, and that’s the fridging of Aunt May.
Aunt May was killed in the comics once, in a beautiful, tragic, lovely 1995 story in Amazing Spider-Man #400 by J.M. DeMatteis & Mark Bagley, only to have it reversed later by Norman Osborn, revealing that that wasn’t really Aunt May, but rather a dying actress who was surgically modified. Another time her life was threatened, they retconned Peter and Mary Jane’s marriage to save her life.
Marisa Tomei’s May Parker was fantastic, a great helpmeet for Parker and an inspirational, fun figure, who raised a hero. To kill her off like this just so Parker could have a tragedy to go with the other two Spider-Men’s tragedy was cheap and stupid and annoying.
How-some-ever, it’s also the only significant flaw in this otherwise delightful movie.
There’s a lot of meat to this story, and it’s impressive that it never drags, constantly hangs together, and tells several interesting and compelling stories, and still being very much a Spider-Man film.
It also does right by the prior incarnations, both of which ended on really sour notes (Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 are really terrible). In particular, this movie does a lot to redeem Andrew Garfield’s relentlessly mediocre performance in the two Marc Webb movies. Garfield is superb in this movie. His best moment is when MJ falls off the Statue of Liberty scaffolding and Garfield!Peter is able to save her. The look of pure relief and joy on his face when he realizes that he is able to save MJ the way he wasn’t able to save Gwen is magnificently played by Garfield.
Tobey Maguire meanwhile gives us an older Parker who has seen a lot of stuff, and is still keepin’ on, the way Spider-Man is supposed to. I particularly love how blasé he is about being stabbed, as it’s hardly the first time that’s happened…
One of the things I absolutely adore about this movie, though, is that it—in a kind, compassionate, not at all mean-spirited way—calls out one of the biggest flaws in the Raimi and Webb films, which was that most of the villains ended up dead in the end: Norman Osborn (both times!), Harry Osborn (only once), Otto Octavius, Eddie Brock, Curt Connors, and Max Dillon all die. Flint Marko is the only one of the five in this movie who is guaranteed to survive when returning to his universe. And that never sat well with me, especially in movies about a hero who won’t kill.
And this movie pushes back against that tendency—which has been a trope of action movies forever, which has bled over into far too many superhero movies—by having Spider-Man work, not to stop the villains, but to save them.
Another character who specifically is redeemed is Max Dillon. Played as a second-rate version of Jim Carrey’s awful Riddler in Batman Forever back in 2014, Jamie Foxx plays Dillon as a much more rounded and interesting character here.
My favorite moment is when he’s been depowered and he’s sitting with Garfield!Peter, who doesn’t have his mask on, and Dillon comments that he was surprised when he first saw his real face. He’s so young, plus given that he’s from Queens and helps poor people and covers his entire face with his costume, Dillon was sure that he’d be Black…
My second favorite is the fact that the entire plot happens because the very motor-mouthed Peter Parker simply cannot keep his mouth shut, and that screws up the spell. Strange’s subsequent epiphany is particularly well done by the great Benedict Cumberbatch, as he sadly has to remind himself that, despite the fact that he’s saved hundreds of lives and helped stop Thanos, he’s still a seventeen-year-old kid.
There are tons of other great moments in this: Strange and Wong’s banter (and the delightfully ridiculous snow-filled sanctum), the back and forth of what Peter calls Strange (“sir” is too formal, “Stephen” is a bit weird), Tomei’s letter-perfect delivery of the most repeated line in Spider-Man history and making it fucking sing, every moment Willem Dafoe is on screen chewing all the scenery both as the befuddled Osborn and the cackling Goblin, every moment J.K. Simmons is on screen continuing his absolute nailing of Jameson, every moment Mary Rivera is on screen as Ned’s grandma whom you ignore at your peril, Octavius’ dismissal of magic right up until Strange performs some in front of him (the birthday-party lines were particularly great), the overwhelming public attention that Peter and MJ especially receive, the magnificent Charlie Cox cameo, Peter’s realization that the Mirror Dimension can be manipulated by math, the different reactions of the three Midtown Science High teachers to Peter’s presence, every time Strange’s anger with Peter modulates back into affection (especially at the end when Peter makes a major sacrifice and Strange admits to being one of the people who loves him), and pretty much every moment Maguire, Garfield, and Holland are together and bantering and redoing the famous double Spider-Man meme. Plus some more that I’m sure I forgot because there are so many great moments in this movie.
And in the end, Spider-Man is back to his roots: a down-on-his-luck hero who struggles to make ends meet while continuing to be a great hero, even when the press is vilifying him, even when it would be so easy to give it all up.
This is a perfect culmination of, not just all of Holland’s appearances as Spider-Man, but also of the previous two movie versions we saw this century. Plus it sets the scene perfectly for future adventures. Just a wonderful wonderful movie.
Next week we’ll take a look at Matthew Vaughn’s prequel to his adaptations of Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons’ comics, The King’s Man.
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be at Shore Leave 42 in Cockeysville, Maryland this weekend, as both an author and musician, doing panels, workshops, and autographings, as well as performing with the Boogie Knights for their 40th anniversary concert. His full schedule can be found here.
Not me sitting here this morning crying all over again about Aunt May just reading your review. This really was such a fantastic movie. Thanks for the articles!
00 / KRAD:
First was 2007’s “One More Day” by J. Michael Straczynski & Joe Quesada, in which Peter agrees to a deal with Mephisto, the lord of the underworld, to retroactively end his marriage to Mary Jane Watson (one of the stupidest story decisions ever made in the nearly six decades of the character’s existence
One of the great ironies of One More Day is that up to that point in time, it was going to be Sins Past that was going to go down as the most hated point of JMS’ tenure. While it’s still a hated story, the backlash to it got overshadowed by the stupidity and long-term damage of One More Day.
I give all credit to Nick Spencer to figuring out a way to finally retcon Sins Past last year during the climax of his Amazing Spider-Man run (not to mention fixing as much of the One More Day damage as he could — or at least as much as Editorial would allow him). Hell, even JMS gave his blessing to Spencer for nuking Sins Past.
And Charlie Cox’s cameo made my Christmas last year. So happy Hornhead’s not only in the MCU, but that they’ve kept Cox (and D’Onofrio as Fisk).
Also, I loved Michael Giacchino’s score on this one — and not just for bringing back Danny Elfman and James Horner’s Spidey themes. Given that he composed the MCU Spidey and Doctor Strange’s leitmotifs, hearing those themes duel one another during “Sling vs. Bling” was one of my favorite post-Infinity Saga MUC music moments.
Airian Moayed’s DoDC agent appeared next in Ms Marvel.
I absolutely love this movie, but I do not have to say anything more, because Keith says all that I think and feel about it (including about my favourite scene when Garfield!Peter saves MJ, and the flaw that annoyed me), only times better than I ever could. So just adding my appreciation for the movie and for the article.
I was expecting this movie to fall apart under the weight of everything it was trying to accomplish, and instead, it rose to the challenge. I can understand people who say it’s just playing on nostalgic manipulation, but I counter that by pointing out that this is precisely the kind of antics we would see in the actual comic books. So in that respect, among so many others, the film succeeds. I dare say it handles the multiverse better than the subsequent Doctor Strange film.
I honestly couldn’t believe that they killed May, not because it was a “fridging,” but because I didn’t think they would be that daring. Then again, in the absolutely amazing Spider-Man game for the PS4/5, they killed May there too and it was also just devastating. I dislike the idea that anyone can have plot armor, and this was done very effectively.
@@.-@ / CriticalMyth:
So in that respect, among so many others, the film succeeds. I dare say it handles the multiverse better than the subsequent Doctor Strange film.
I do wonder how both films and their Multiversal mini-arc would’ve turned out if MoM had preceded NWH as was intended before COVID kneecapped production and forced them to switch released orders and rework Strange 2 from the ground up.
I remember when Spider-Man 3 was panned for trying to cram too much movie into its movie and having three villains. How quaint that complaint feels in retrospect after seeing this absolutely knock this, which is essentially 8 sequels at once, out of the park.
I really HATED the killing Aunt May here! She was the best thing to happen to the franchise IMO! The plot was very convoluted, from very convoluted source material.
Perene: I stand by that complaint about Spider-Man 3, which I made earlier in this very rewatch series, because it was too much movie. This one wasn’t, because it was written and directed and edited with a defter touch.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Steve: Thanks for that reminder. The post has been fixed.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido, slave to the edit function
00 / KRAD:
“Scooby-Doo this shit!”
That’s easily become my favorite MCU Doctor Strange line.
It’s Cumberbatch’s exasperated I’m-sick-of-these-meddling-kids delivery that sells it.
And I adore this Trilogy’s running gag of Peter getting an MCU elder statesman (or junior in Strange’s case) as a mentor…and then slowly but surely driving them up the walls over the course of the movie.
@10/krad: Oh absolutely. It was even worse when I went back to watch it recently for a full Spider-Man rewatch. I guess I was more referring to the fact that history has proven it possible to pull off, and not that failure was a foregone conclusion just for including so many characters and villains.
I got so spoiled on this one that I just read this to see if I wanted to even see it at all. After reading this I hate that it’s out of the dollar theater now, and I may pick it up on physical media my next day off…
There has to be a better way to establish gravity and tragedy than killing a main cast member, and sometimes I wonder about what qualifies as Fridging (I even invoke Fridge Logic sometimes… I’ll see myself out) but whatever the definition is, with the choice between adding drama to the story and keeping the character for more stories… I’ll keep the character. I’m assuming the moment just works right and the rest of the story is just that awesome, but man, I hope Marissa Tomei just didn’t want to do this anymore.
Having said that? Those five movies contain three of my all time favorites. And reading this I feel like I really do need to see it with my own eyes.
wizardofwoz77: You should see the movie. Trust me. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
This one had so much stuffed into it that it shouldn’t have worked. But it did, with a great script, great direction, and some wonderful performances. And it left Spidey as a scrappy underdog who makes his own suit, which is how I like him best.
They really caught lightning in a bottle with this one. You couldn’t do it twice. You couldn’t do it unless they ALL agreed to do it, and WANTED to do it. And then they actually DID SOMETHING with it.
There was no way to tell going in whether the other Spiders-men and villains were going to be the real plot or just a quick joking reference like Quicksilver in “Wandavision”. I was blown away by the way that they not only brought these characters in from the other movies, they were actively involved in the main plot and they ALL had incredible character development. I was never more than a casual fan of the previous movies when they were originally made, but I did see most of them, and was very excited to see such an amazing production tying everything together. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for Tobey and Andrew to actually come back as Spider-Man.
I highly recommend watching the new CinemaTherapy video about this movie, looking at the psychology of how people move on from loss, particularly Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man. In addition to the usual pair of hosts, a “licensed therapist who loves movies and a filmmaker who needs therapy”, they are joined by Omar Zaki, who was one of the stunt men in this movie and talks about that experience.
Really, I recommend watching all their videos, but this is the one that’s on topic. You can find them by searching for “cinema therapy” on Youtube.
Curt Connors doesn’t die! He ends up in prison.
Love this review, and almost exactly how I felt coming out of the cinema and on rewatch at home.
I have to question the fridging part though. My own reaction was OMG they’ve given Uncle Ben’s role to Aunt May!! Which I still think is a brave decision.My view of MCU Spidey has always been he doesnt have enough tragedy, or the infamous Parker luck, which is a key part of Spider-man’s character. The end of this film really felt like the start of adult Peter saddled with his guilt and May’s death is key to that.
Every other version of Aunt May that’s ever been fridged has died a passive death; this one went down fighting, with a weapon in her hands. I think that counts for something.
For me, the only flaw in NWH is that MJ and Ned don’t get their memories back. These are people who understood the risks of being in Spider-Man’s life, and they accepted those risks – Peter had no right to make that decision for them. In a movie that pushes back so hard against the tropes of the Raimi and Webb movies, to do the “I must protect my girlfriend by denying her agency” bit felt like a really false note to end on
One of the things I disliked about the current crop of Spider-man films is the absence of Peter as one of the few A-list superheroes who consistently has to worry about making rent, so it’s interesting to see the third movie move him back into that status quo.
The other thing is… okay, I respect the decision not to kick off Spider-man with yet another origin story, but it left the impression that Peter got spider-powers and decided to do the hero thing because he’s just a good kid and looks up to role models like Tony Stark.
Which is, y’know, fine, But…
and, okay, we’re dealing with a character whose been around for six decades, with dozens of continuities, reboots, adaptations, and retellings, so a lot of this is pick-and-choose subjective. But I’ve come to see Peter as having a fairly specific arc. Pre Spiderbite, he’s a bright, lonely, alienated teen, from a family that loves him, but where money is tight. He’s got more than a little bit of a chip on his shoulder- he feels like the world owes him something. It’s interesting to me that when he gets power, his first thought is “What can these powers do for me?” (And at the same time, “what can they do for Aunt May and Uncle Ben) just as it’s interesting that the answer is not “Rob a bank or kidnap the president.” But it takes personal tragedy to turn him into the hero who will do everything he can to help everyone who crosses his path, regardless of the personal cost.
(And the extremes to which he’s driven to take it, and the toll it takes on his attempts to have a normal life, result in the occasional “Spider-man no more!” storyline, which is of course unsustainable because he’ll never be able to ignore someone in need again).
Anyway, regardless of whether she said the thing, I don’t think Aunt May dying years(?) into Peter’s hero career accomplishes quite the same thing, so I’d just as soon have kept her.
It feels like a long time since a movie has hooked me so emotionally. It isn’t perfect, but it hit a lot of diverse emotional triggers from grief to joy. I haven’t rewatched it because I am afraid I will see it with a more jaded eye.
Was that Dr. Pym? The last scene of Peter with the donut, looking at MJ and Ned, I thought there was an old man in the background who looked just like Michael Douglas.
As for the movie itself, I agree – it was fantastic in all the ways.
I think really Dr Strange is the villain of this story. In the last one, Tony Stark came back from the grave to assure himself of the WORST ADULT MENTOR EVER trophy, and in this one Steven Strange is all “Hold my beer! I can beat Stark at that!” I mean, he does this major spell mostly because he’s miffed at losing the Supreme Sorcerer title, and then blames Peter when it goes wrong.
This completely works because it’s very in character for Strange!
I certainly disagree with you about Mr Andrew Garfield (for my money his performance was a consistently solid element of two sometimes shaky films, though it must be admitted that he’s my favourite live action Spider-Man; this is because, unlike Mr Maguire and Mr Holland, Mr Garfield’s Parker is a snarky little b**** of a superhero) and I somewhat disagree with you about the late May Parker – it’s sad to see her pass, but she went with the diff of Great Tragedy.
On the other hand, everything else I absolutely agree with, for this is definitely a most thoroughly entertaining piece of work (I’m not going to lie, Mr Jamie Foxx is now my personal pick for the Flash Thompson of Miles Morales’ Earth based on that scene with Spider-Garfield), not least because it left us with plenty of room to imagine what followed Spider-Maguire & Spider-Garfield’s return home (Amusing mental image of the first thing Spider-Maguire sees being his parallels’ version of Doctor Strange: “Tell me everything” “I got stabbed. Again” “Good thing the doctor is in – tell me more, I’ll fix things while you talk” – Also, I am cast iron certain that Spider-Garfield will finally be taking Aunt May up on that offer to him him up with Anna Watson’s niece once he gets back*).
*If nothing else, it makes perfect sense that a series that always did better as romance than as superhero adventure would start with the film where Spidey & Gwen hook up, continue with the film where Spidey loses Gwen and conclude with the film where Peter finally comes to terms with that loss (Though it might work best as a story told from the local MJ’s point of view, if only because that’s probably the best way to get us on the side of this particular tigress!).
@26. bethmitcham: I disagree with this interpretation – Stephen is acting as Peter’s friend & ally, not a mentor; also, as is blatantly clear, Peter’s actions make it impossible for Doctor Strange to do the job properly, because the Doc is effectively trying to juggle knives while Peter keeps poking him in the elbow to get his attention
@28/ED: But Strange is (literally) the adult in the room which means it should have been his responsibility not to let Peter talk him into casting the spell in the first place. That is my big complaint about the film: none of it should have happened at all. The whole plot depends on Strange basically saying “Well, my entire mission is to prevent this kind of thing from happening, but what the heck… Oh no! Look what you made me do. Now things have gone wrong in exactly the way I warned you was likely, but decided to overlook!” I mean, maybe Mordo and the Illuminati aren’t entirely wrong about Strange’s judgment.
@29. Keith Rose: Your remarks have now given me a suspicion that many of Doctor Stephen Strange’s recent difficulties stem from an overactive ‘Cool Big Brother’ gland – when surrounded by puppy eyed adolescents begging for help, he could certainly stand to be more ‘Dad’ and less ‘Bro’ (You’d think that a man who’s been working with Wong for years would pick up at least a little more Dad Voice).
I would like to voice my disapproval at Jamie Foxx’s Max Dillon being called “a second-rate Jim Carrey” anything. Electro is nearly a pitch-perfect rendition of my life between 5 and 20. I have Asperger’s and have spent my life wishing that people didn’t treat me the way they treated Max. While I, this late in life, wouldn’t go on a dark rampage and kill the people who ruined my early life, I can’t say I wouldn’t have then. I’m not advocating him as an autistic power fantasy, but Max was done terrible wrongs in that life. His performance perfectly captured my childhood, and it was a magnificent piece of acting (even if his costuming was a little off.) I wish I’d had more telling me they were my friend back then, because the only one that did moved in six months. Jim Carrey is an overacting hack most of the time. Max Dillon is autism done perfectly right, and the sooner people understand that he is based on real people instead of mocking him, the sooner kids born like me can grow up feeling appreciated.
@17: I have to admit, at the end of the movie, I was screaming mentally: “All right… all you people complaining about MCU Peter having access to Stark’s tech and nano-Spider suit and everything… ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?!?!?!?!“
It was an amazingly good movie. I loved it. But MCU Peter lost damn near everything. His home. His family. His close friends. Everyone who ever cared about him. All of his efforts in high school – no record of his classes, no transcript, nothing – and his shot at college. Any inheritance he might have had. His entire life, really. He’s starting over from scratch.
And watching that hurt. I really don’t want to think anyone was celebrating that – but if anyone was, I want to punch them in the face.
reagan3: The comparison to Jim Carrey was mainly in terms of his story over the course of the movie, which followed the exact same beats as Carrey’s Riddler in Batman Forever, which I discussed in more depth when I reviewed The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in this rewatch series.
https://www.tor.com/2018/11/09/everythings-always-complicated-with-peter-the-amazing-spider-man-2/
I thought the Carrey version was terrible, and that Foxx’s Dillon was worse, and I stand by that, but I’m glad you found resonance in his portrayal.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@29 / Keith Rose:
I suppose you could argue Strange was also being motivated by residual guilt from sacrificing Tony to stop Thanos. He saw firsthand how much Tony meant to Peter and vice-versa. Helping Stark’s protegee get out of this disaster would be an easy fix.
Also Strange, was coming off the intricate ‘Get Thanos’ plan. Compare to what the juggling timelines, a quick multiversal memory modification should’ve been and seen as a cake walk from Stephen’s perspective.
And therein lies the crux of the mistake: Even with his character development, pride and ego are still very much a part of Stephen (just as they are in the comics). Losing the Sorcerer Supreme mantle to Wong, even if it was a necessary byproduct of the Snap, pushed his buttons and buttons.
He couldn’t help himself.
00 / KRAD:
First was 2007’s “One More Day” by J. Michael Straczynski & Joe Quesada, in which Peter agrees to a deal with Mephisto, the lord of the underworld, to retroactively end his marriage to Mary Jane Watson (one of the stupidest story decisions ever made in the nearly six decades of the character’s existence.
The other thing I forgot to add is that my feelings on adapting OMD were the same as adapting Civil War back in 2016.
I was very uneasy about it as both stories are not among my favorites from the mid-2000s-era Marvel.
But it’s a credit to the MCU that after 14 years, they’ve perfected the science of adapting those kinds of stories for their setting and actually making them work (and staying true, if not further improving, upon the core themes/narrative). I enjoyed CA:CW much more than the source material and same thing here.
I thought the way they handled Aunt May’s death was very well done and added genuine stakes and consequences to the story.
Mr. Magic: Civil War especially worked better in the MCU because the relationships weren’t as deep and well established. I never bought the friendship sundering that happened in the comics, particularly between Steve and Tony, but in the MCU, where the two don’t even entirely like each other, it works.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
For me the heartbreaking thing (and perhaps the important thematic aspect of) about May’s death is that she dies doing the right thing, and she’s WRONG about it in this circumstance (well, until the very end, I guess, since they do eventually cur ethe Goblin). She extended mercy to somebody who ended up in some ways being the poster example of why we should all be suspicious and guarded and just fight our enemies instead of trying to save them…but the narrative still does not treat that as a mistake.
I don’t know, maybe I’m reading too much into it, but as it intersects with one of my very own personal existential quandaries as well as what I consider one of the most important spiritual questions in my own life to me that is honestly one of the most impactful parts of the movie. I love the theme and idea this movie is putting forth about how we approach villains and super-hero-ing (it’s very Return of the Jedi, really) but I’m also so cynical/jaded/ground down at this point that part of me believes it would never really work which is really shitty. (That is not the part of me I want to ‘win’ so to speak though.)
Anyway – we decided to see this in a theater and I’m glad we did. It was so fun. The Raimi films were some of my first superhero films as a young adult that really started to get me interested in the concept, and are associated with a lot of good timess in my life. I’m not all that attached to the others but I always loved Garfield and Stone’s chemistry and am also glad he got a chance to be in something the fans could get really excited about as I know there are definitely a lot of people that DID really enjoy those movies. (It’s a little reminiscent of Hayden getting a chance to be in Kenobi and actually seeing a positive fan response to that.)
THAT SAID I think I’m one of the only people who had no problems with Foxx’s Electro in his original movie in part becuase I also am a kind of nebbish, overlooked, forgotten person and honestly, I really felt his plight, I really liked him, and I’m glad he also got a chance to shine in this movie (and his moment with Garfield!Peter was one of the highlights of the movie, in part because Garfield plays him with such an earnest charm). (ETA: Ha1 I at least have an ally in @31! And yes, that is basically exactly how I feel. I’ve never gone through a formal dx process, but my son was diagnosed and we’re similar in a lot of ways so it’s one of those things where I find I commonly relate to/empathize with people and characters who are then revealed to be non-NT. And pertaining to krad’s comment, my judgment is probably also suspect because Batman Forever came out when I was around 12 or so and I loved that movie, haha. Including somewhat relating to Carrey’s Nygma even if he was a bit more sadistic than I ever was.)
I love Willem Defoe in basically everything I’ve seen him in and he probably puts in one of the best performances in the movie – he seems to effortlessly shift from fear and vulnerability to absolutely terrifying menace. I’ve also really grown to love Molina’s Octavious (especially when we did some rewatches of the movies a few days) and I’m also really glad they stuck with his character arc which was that he DID already die a reformed villain and that he is more or less on Peter’s side from the start. (Somewhat similar to this is Flint, although I admittedly am not as attached to that character.) Honestly, his little moment with McGuire!Peter made me tear up.
I love that all 3 Peters go to be actual characters and interact and have their own moments and breakthroughs, not just show up as memes or cameos (this is one of my complaints with Multivers of Madness).
The funny thing is, as much as I love this movie, it’s the plot I have a problem with…on rewatches I find a few holes in it and I’m not all that happy with how it was resolved, but I love the movie so much anyway. Even if it WAS just a vehicle to bring in all the legacy characters and cash in on that, the characters were treated as real characters in the story and not just nostalgia bait, so it worked for me.
I just really wish we could have gotten a hint of Miles Morales! (And that he’d get a chance to meet Electro!)
Okay, so writing this is giving me all the feels and now I want to go rewatch it :)
ETA: somebody mentioned the soundtrack and I did want to say I loved that too, and it’s a good example of a composer doing their own thing but still respecting/honoring what came before (but without over-relying on it) and creating that kind of cohesion. To me the motifs/music are just as much a part of certain characters as other costume elements.
@37,
Absolutely.
One of the core flaws of the original event, if I remember right, it started as an idea Millar and Bryan Hitch had actually been kicking around for Ultimate Marvel. And when the original ideas for Marvel’s 2006 event met with lukewarm Editorial/Creative reception at their annual summit, it got repurposed for the 616 Universe.
The irony is that concept, like the MCU, would have worked in UM with the similarly less-established relationships (along with the morally ambiguous crap like Tony, Reed, and Hank playing Clone Wars with Thor’s DNA).
But in the mainstream 616 Universe? As you said, it didn’t work.
Hey krad? About those Manga based movies e were talking about in the Mandrake comments? Well, other Asian comics that have English language adaptions too! PREIST (2011) is based on the Manhwa (South Korean comic) for instance. (I’m just trying to work you to death! Aren’t I?)
Also, is JUNGLE JIM a superhero? I was looking up movies based on King Features Syndicate movies (which I figure is currently in forth place for the rewatch, behind Marvel, DC and Dark Horse) and found out there are a number of “B” movies made with the character between 1948 and 1955. Have you actually, spelled out what qualifies for the rewatch?
I’ve never — okay, for like six months — understood why Ned and MJ leave the scene at the end. They could stay for an infodump from unmasked Peter (and even Strange to corroborate). I also don’t understand why knowledge of Peter Parker’s very existence had to be erased but, fine, magical consequences.
Overall, I agree with pretty much everything KRAD wrote.
I hated May’s death too, and likewise found ASM #400 moving. Didn’t this universe’s Ben Parker also die in presumably the classic fashion, though? I found it odd that Maguire-Peter’s mention of Uncle Ben didn’t seem to resonate directly with Holland-Peter — or even Garfield-Peter. Still, and I say this as someone who recalls when the very concept was coined, I’m not sure I consider May’s death a fridging. The event isn’t just there to motivate Pete but to leave him utterly bereft after all is done; then again, her being alive without any memory of him would’ve been almost as devastating and, if/when the time came, more plausibly reversible.
I also hate the “Scooby-Doo this shit” line. Cumberbatch plays an entertaining guy named Stephen Strange but it’s perennially disappointing in being very unlike the comics’ version in temperament. One big, sarcastic laugh line of his in Multiverse of Madness is so not that character to me. And the cuss here is purely for deadpan humor with shock value that could’ve, I think should’ve, been written another way given that the comics traditionally don’t incorporate that level of swearing.
The camaraderie amongst the Spider-Men (Spiders-Man?) is palpable and knowing Holland is himself such a fan — Garfield too, actually — makes it utterly delightful. I do wish they had fit Nicholas Hammond in there, and I don’t think Jonah looks right without the flattop…
@41,
I’ve never — okay, for like six months — understood why Ned and MJ leave the scene at the end. They could stay for an infodump from unmasked Peter (and even Strange to corroborate). I also don’t understand why knowledge of Peter Parker’s very existence had to be erased but, fine, magical consequences.
I wonder if that ending was planned circa FFH, or if it came about because of the initial collapse of the shared custody in August 2019.
Feige and company wouldn’t have ended FFH on that cliffhanger if they hadn’t been confident about getting to Act Three. I’d imagine the business relationship’s collapse must’ve been as much of a shock as Alan Horn’s preemptive firing of Gunn was in 2018 (Gunn’s stated Feige more or less found out the same way the rest of us did and was just as shocked).
So it does seems like NWH’s ending was done as a safeguard to end Peter’s arc and prominence in the MCU just in case this was their last outing with Webhead (much in the same way Iron Man 3 had to work as a possible ending for Tony Stark’s as RDJ’s contract had been fulfilled and it wasn’t guaranteed they’d be able to renegotiate).
@32, tbutler
THANK YOU. I thought I was the only one. Parker luck be damned that was too much. No Parker has ever been so completely stripped of everything good in his life. He’s completely alone and I hate it.
And I am mad BIG MAD at Peter for not telling MJ and Ned. I’m hoping that that will be rectified in the future with him trying to build a new relationship with them naturally, but he broke his promise to MJ…which is really more Garfield!Peter’s shtick.
Also them killing Aunt May was brutal and unnecessary though it makes the finale more complete. The death of Aunt May however raises a greater question, what the hell happened to MCU Uncle Ben? Is May Peter’s Paternal Aunt in the MCU instead of via marriage?
Other than that the film was an impressive Juggling act and a lot of fun. The only remaining disappointment is we probably won’t see Ned become a sorcerer now.
Just having watched it again…didn’t Simmons have the J. Jonah Jameson flattop at the end of Far from Home? He didn’t have it here. (Hey! These things are important!) ;)
And I got through this one with out mentioning that Bulletproof Monk I based on an Image comic! It’s great! I….?….!….*doh*
EP: no, JJJ did not have the flat top in FFH. I think that was to distinguish him from the Raimi version while still using Simmons.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@43, I think May gives Peter Uncle Ben’s suitcase to use in Far From Home? So Uncle Ben did exist in this universe, it’s just unclear if he died the same way or perhaps died before Peter was born or something like that. Either way, I too find May’s death excessive and unnecessary.
I didn’t care much for the Garfield duology (except for him crushing the alarm clock on his first day of super strength – that was great). However, I consider their existence now completely justified because they brought us the amazing gift that is the Maguire/Garfield/Holland team up.
Also, I really wanted to yell at Strange for not sitting Peter down first and fully explaining the side effects of the spell, because as a physician, he would know about consent forms and waivers and making sure your patients are fully informed about all possible consequences.
@47 – he also strikes me as a physician who wouldn’t bother with them (rather – would have his nurses do it to make sure the compliance officier isnt on them) because why on earth would somebody question his treatment/decision? ;)
Kyna: I agree with Lisamarie, Strange was the kind of doctor who had people to do all that silly administrative stuff…….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I finally reached the top of the library’s waiting list for the DVD — and judging from the label on the disc, apparently I somehow managed to get copy #1 of the 250-plus copies they have in the system! Well, I guess that’s statistically as likely as any other given number.
This is the first of the MCU Spidey “Home” trilogy that I’ve really liked. I found the first two mediocre; they were trying too hard to be John Hughes films, an idiom that has no appeal to me, and they did an awkward job grafting Spidey together with MCU elements. But this film was terrific. I think that’s because it was more of a “grown-up” film, not trying for the high school comedy vibe anymore, and because by its very nature, it rode so heavily on elements from Spider-Man’s own mythos, with the MCU elements there to support them instead of competing with them.
Most of all, though, it succeeded superbly as a film because it is so very, very driven by character. It brought together characters from so many different movies and served most of them very well. And it gave the actors plenty of chances to shine. It was a joy to see Alfred Molina’s Octavius back in such a prominent role, and Willem Dafoe was fantastic as the two sides of Osborn/Goblin. Jamie Foxx got to be more impressive as a villain this time around, not buried under blue makeup and VFX and letting more of his charisma come through. (I guess they explained the change by having him turn to energy and reconstitute himself as his ideal image of himself.) Sandman and Lizard didn’t get as much to do, though, and the CGI on Lizard was surprisingly cartoonish and unconvincing.
Once they showed up, Maguire and Garfield were effectively handled too. It was fun seeing three versions of Peter Parker get to know each other and compare themselves to one another. It was kind of like being brothers, as Garfield!Peter said.
Maybe the greatest part is that it’s a story of rescue and redemption, very much about helping the villains and empathizing with them and saving their lives and their souls, rather than fighting them to the death. Maybe it’s a bit too easy the way they whip up Stark-tech miracle cures for five different bad guys, but it’s good to see them all get healed and given new chances. Plus the redemption narrative is extended to Garfield’s Peter when he rescues MJ in the same circumstances where he failed to save Gwen.
Another cool bit was Peter taking a page from Squirrel Girl’s book and solving the Mirror Dimension with math. That and Garfield saving MJ were my two biggest fist-in-the-air moments.
I’m not sure how I feel about May’s sacrifice. It mainly just leaves me wondering about Uncle Ben in this universe, and what motivated Peter to be Spidey. But I did like the way they handled it, in a way that avoided cliche. The usual version of a scene like that has the dying person lying on the ground and struggling for breath and just generally being obviously at death’s door for the duration of the final farewell speech. But here, May got up and seemed to be fine, and then had a delayed reaction and suddenly collapsed. I gather that’s how it really does happen sometimes, but it’s unusual to see in fiction.
Speaking of averting cliches: I’m not at all fond of the overused trope of the hero seeking revenge on the villain who killed their loved one, only to have their ally talk them down and say “No! If you do this, you’ll be as bad as they are!” It’s such a formulaic trope, and it often makes the hero act out of character, just mechanically following a script when they should already know better. So I wasn’t fond of seeing it grafted onto Holland!Peter here. But I loved the way it paid off. Instead of giving a speech, Maguire!Peter just stopped him and stared at him, and Tobey Maguire’s soulful gaze did all the talking. He didn’t have to say a word, because Holland!Peter already knew, deep down, that this was wrong.
My biggest disappointment is that we don’t get to see how the villains’ fates change once they go back to their universes. I suppose that would’ve been prohibitively expensive to film, recreating and altering the climaxes of five different movies. It would also have created all sorts of temporal issues, because the characters from later in the timeline, like Otto, Marko, and the Peters, remember the others dying. But then, I suppose by Endgame/Loki temporal logic, all this would do is create new time tracks coexisting in parallel with the original timelines. So the movies still happened as we saw them, but now the villains get to live on in new universes. In Loki terms, they’re Variants now, so it’s lucky for them that the TVA isn’t erasing Variants anymore.
Still, I would’ve liked to see some onscreen followup about the multiversal characters, instead of being stuck with the terrible, pointless Eddie Brock mid-credit scene. That was just dumb and annoying.
I did like it that the movie ended with Spidey in an authentic homemade cloth costume, with no more Stark tech to make it easy for him. Although Peter’s sewing skills have improved greatly since Homecoming, it seems.
I do have questions about the mechanics of the spell erasing Peter’s identity. It would have to affect more than just people’s memories, but would also have to erase or alter all physical documentation of Peter Parker’s existence, including the recordings of all JJJ’s online rants against him. What would people see when they replay the video of Peter calling JJJ from the Statue of Liberty? Would that footage just be gone? Would Spidey have his mask on in it now?
Also, how does Peter survive when there are no physical records that he ever existed? How can he get a job?
Oh, and why is the Department of Damage Control an armed government strike force now instead of just the people cleaning up the debris from super-battles?
Anyway, now that I’ve finally caught up with this, I have just enough time tonight to watch the Dr. Strange movie on Disney+. So I’ll be able to comment on that one when Keith gets to it. Although I’m currently at #943 on the library’s waiting list for The Batman, so I’ll have to sit that rewatch out for a while.
@42/Mr. Magic: “So it does seems like NWH’s ending was done as a safeguard to end Peter’s arc and prominence in the MCU just in case this was their last outing with Webhead”
I don’t know about that. After all, the MCU still knows all about Spider-Man. He’s still a major superhero. It’s just that nobody knows Peter Parker anymore.
@50: Any given part of the U.S. government having armed enforcers is probably the most realistic thing in a MCU movie.
@50 / CLB:
I do have questions about the mechanics of the spell erasing Peter’s identity. It would have to affect more than just people’s memories, but would also have to erase or alter all physical documentation of Peter Parker’s existence, including the recordings of all JJJ’s online rants against him. What would people see when they replay the video of Peter calling JJJ from the Statue of Liberty? Would that footage just be gone? Would Spidey have his mask on in it now?
My thought on that was that the spell possibly went the same route that Charles Soule did on Daredevil when he undid the Bendis/Waid outing and irestored Hornhead’s secret identity: A mental/psychic block (albeit magically induced) preventing anyone from processing the image or having it blank out. Fisk, for example, looked at his records on DD’s identity…and all he saw was a blank page whereas we saw the detailed notes.
I don’t know about that. After all, the MCU still knows all about Spider-Man. He’s still a major superhero. It’s just that nobody knows Peter Parker anymore.
Right, but none of the Avengers know who he is anymore either. Tony was the only real contact/connection he had on the team; he didn’t really know any of them well.
Obviously, they’ll remember Spidey, but not him and may not know how to reach him.
And after becoming involved with Tony and the larger MCU cost him everything, I’d imagine Peter would prefer to stick with the local level moving forward.. That’s what I meant about keeping Spidey in the MCU, but writing him out of the larger action moving forward if the deal collapsed again.
And honestly, part me of wishes this was the end. I love Holland as Webhead, but much like Batman I’ve had my cinematic Spidey fill. I’d prefer the character to take a break, or to just bring in a live-action Miles.
Homecoming was praised for not really doing the Spider-Man origin. But what they actually did was a 3 film origin story. They have just swapped Aunt May for Uncle Ben.
Actual Genius.
After reading the IMDb Trivia page for this film, I realize it omitted a rather significant element, one that was considered but not used. Namely, it’s not just the villains who knew Spidey’s identity — Mary Jane, Gwen, and at least one version of Aunt May knew it too. (I forget if Sally Field’s version did.) And if villains who died years ago could be brought back, then Gwen could’ve been too.
So I wonder — did Strange just contain the spell before those women crossed over into 616? Or were they wandering around this unfamiliar world off-camera the whole time? Did Garfield’s Peter miss a chance to save his Gwen because he never knew she was there? That would just be too cruel.
Strange said he contained the spell before anyone else came in, so I figure he did so before the other folks could.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@55/krad: Yeah, which I guess explains why we didn’t see the Raimiverse Eddie Brock or Harry Osborn either. Still, why would the spell prioritize bringing the other Spider-Men’s enemies before bringing their allies? That’s kind of arbitrary, especially since Peter was thinking of his own friends and allies when he tampered with the spell.
Come to think of it, the plot to this movie pretty much underscores how bad cinematic superheroes are at keeping their secret identities secret.
I remember when the first Raimi Spider-Man opened back in ’02, only 2 years after the first Bryan Singer X-Men film. Back then, I was already entertaining hopes that those films would eventually coalesce into crossover territory, something that could one day remotely resemble a shared cinematic universe, even though they all belonged to different studios. When Marvel Studios came to being and did that first Iron Man, I had long lost any hope at such a thing, and assumed the shared universe thing was going to be done primarily with Tony Stark, Cap and the others.
Even when Sony partnered with Marvel to include Holland’s Spider-Man on Civil War, I’d just assumed the Raimi and Webb days were pretty much behind for good. Just like DC tended to reboot cinematic Batman and Superman every few years or so. I’d never considered the possibility of bringing old versions of these characters back on the big screen the way it was done in other media.
Which is to say, I had never expected No Way Home would ever be a thing.
And what a ride of a film. It’s not quite on the level of Raimi’s first two entries, or Spider-verse, but it’s cutting pretty close. This is by far the best Watts-directed solo Spider outing. Better than Homecoming, and much better than Far from Home.
Given how the Holland era more or less sidestepped Uncle Ben’s death, I was actually pretty surprised they went ahead and killed Aunt May. I really liked Tomei’s version of the character. But I don’t see it as a case of fridging at all. I see it as a necessary step for this version of Spidey. Since we’ve never had this Peter Parker mourning Ben’s death onscreen, we needed a similar moment of failure and regret. It doesn’t quite land as strongly as Ben’s death on Raimi’s original film, but coupled alongside Peter’s decision to remove himself from everyone who knew him, it adds a much needed weight to the character as he forges his future. I choked when he settled into his cozy low-rent apartment all by himself, much like Maguire’s version back in the original trilogy.
I cheered when the three Peters got to meet and compare stories. This is as close to fan-service as a story can get. But it works for those who are old enough to have seen all these films on the big screen over the past 20 years. And it gives a much needed lift to the Andrew Garfield version, who was always interesting, yet saddled with the mediocre entries.
Crossover-wise, it’s a nice entry for Stephen Strange, as he fills Tony’s shoes, and it sets up the next Strange film pretty well. I actually thought the multiverse breaking apart over the skies was somehow related to the events that happened on Loki.
And then there are the villains. What a comeback for Molina and Dafoe! It’s as if they never left. Foxx also gets some excellent stuff as Electro. And I adored that everything that goes wrong happens because Peter decided that these people deserved a second chance at living. I can’t think of something more heroic than a hero who’s so empathic, he’s willing to put prejudices against villains aside. Even though it’s the wrong call, it’s the most moral attitude I’ve ever seen with Peter Parker. That alone makes this film a special entry in Phase 4.
@57/Eduardo: ” it sets up the next Strange film pretty well”
What surprised me was that it didn’t really set it up at all. I thought the multiversal breakdown here would directly cause whatever multiversal shenanigans happened in Multiverse of Madness, but it turned out instead that they were completely unrelated multiverse crises that just coincidentally happened more or less consecutively, which is pretty lame. The only real continuity from one to the other is that the former incident gives Strange enough familiarity with the multiverse that he’s able to hit the ground running when faced with it again.
I wonder if it would’ve worked better with the films in the reverse order, as originally intended before the pandemic. Strange’s first encounter with the multiverse is in his own film, and his experience with it somehow makes him aware of the spell he then uses for Spider-Man. That would make more sense of why a memory-erasure spell involves the multiverse at all, something that wasn’t really explained in NWH. (Also, apparently America Chavez was meant to fill the portal-opening role Ned played here, which would have been more organic than having Ned put on a sling ring and somehow intuitively figure it out with no training.)